Remembering Christian Aguilar, One Year Since UF Student Murder

Published September 20th, 2013

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GAINESVILLE - It's been one year since a missing person mystery arose in North Central Florida. UF student Christian Aguilar disappeared-- which led to a three- week manhunt. When his body was found-- investigators discovered Christian had been poisoned and suffocated before he was killed. His best friend, Pedro bravo, was arrested. A year later, the Aguilar family is still waiting for justice to be served.

When UF student Christian Aguilar went missing last September for 22 days, the community came together to try to find him. His body was eventually discovered in a wooded area in Levy county by hunters. Today the Aguilar family awaits Pedro Bravo's trial to begin So that they can move one step closer to closure.

"I do remember all the searches that the students had put on," Yareliz Mendez Zamora a UF student said. September 20th is a day the Aguilar family and the students of the university of Florida will never forget...

"Seeing just masses of people congregating at the park trying to desperately look for this boy who unfortunately, who in the end was murdered," Zamora added.

Allegedly murdered by his best friend, Pedro Bravo, a Santa Fe college student who knew Christian from their hometown-- Miami.

"The most important part of this case is justice and it has not been delivered. I want the community to never forget that my son went missing for 22 days and that with the help of everybody we found my son and that I was able to bring him back home." Carlos Aguilar, Christian Aguilar's father said.

Christian's grave is in Miami, the only place Aguilar can feel close to his son. The day before Christian disappeared, he posted a picture on Tumblr with a quote in Spanish saying, "It's almost law... Eternal love is the most brief." A warning almost, his father tells me. "He's my eternal love, so I was asking myself if he was having that feeling that he was going to departure and going to see god," Aguilar added.

Bravo is charged with first degree murder. The Aguilar family is seeking the death penalty. "We as a family feel that the defense attorney cannot be lowering the sentence for Pedro Bravo without the trial starting. I think if he has to face the death penalty... That's what he needs to face," Aguilar said.

UF students from the Institute of Hispanic Latino Culture are getting together on Sunday to show respect for this fallen Latin gator. "We're planning on doing an event where we will paint the mural with a design that we have set up to remember like what he meant to the community and the impact that his tragic event had on us and commemorate him as a Hispanic gator," Loreen Magarino a UF student said.

The "Paint the Wall" event for Christian, will happen Sunday (September 22nd) at 2 in the afternoon, at the 34th street wall. The trial will most likely take place in May or June of next year.